


Purpose of the Heart

by tansybells



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Borrowers Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Borrower!Ingrid, Borrower!Mercedes, Dangerous Possums, F/F, Female My Unit | Byleth, Femslash February, Medical Conditions, Mercedes tries to keep Byleth from unaliving, My Unit | Byleth Is Doing Their Best, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29136816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansybells/pseuds/tansybells
Summary: As a Borrower, no more than six inches tall, Mercedes has made it her life's purpose to take care of the tenants who move in and out of the house she resides in. And while her newest tenant, Byleth, needs almost more assistance than Mercedes can provide, the unexpected arrival of another Borrower like herself makes Mercedes begin to realize just how big the world outside the four walls of her house is.
Relationships: Brief Mercedes/Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Three Houses AU Bang





	Purpose of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> All illustrations by the awesome [Evie](https://twitter.com/Yevievt)! 
> 
> A brief warning: if discussion of heart arrhythmia, cardiac monitors, and cardiac events aren't your thing, proceed with caution. Take care of yourself first and foremost ♥

Mercedes hummed, her aimless tune drifting up into the air as she patted the mound of soil up around the base of her pea plant. Then, dusting off her dirt-crusted hands on her skirt, she got up to her feet and walked over to stand beneath the water faucet that jutted out from the brick wall about two and a half feet above the ground. Half of a ping-pong ball sat in a little divot just beneath the spigot itself, and Mercedes stepped around it before reaching for one of the two strings that she and Annette had tied on the handle a few springs ago.

At five and a half inches tall, Mercedes had no hope of actually turning the knob itself, but by stepping onto the button tied at the bottom of the string closest to her and using her entire weight, she could convince it to move. It creaked as it turned with a counterclockwise motion, but it only moved far enough that water fell in a slow, inconsistent pitter-patter of droplets to the ground.

Well, they would have fallen to the ground and soaked into the hungry soil were it not for the ping-pong ball that sat beneath the faucet for the sole purpose of catching that unsteady stream.

Mercedes smiled fondly as her little bucket began to fill up. If Annette were there, she’d be singing a sweet little impromptu song with the droplets as her accompaniment, but she wasn’t. She’d made the long trip back to her mother’s home following the disappearance of her father. Yes, it meant that Mercedes was alone without her roommate, which could be lonely at times, but Mrs. Dominic needed Annette’s company far more than Mercedes did.

Normally, Mercedes would at least have one or two tenants living in the house in which she lived to occupy her time. But only a week or two after Anette had moved back home, the lovely couple that had been staying there had decided to leave, and as a result, Mercedes had to provide her own music.

Not that she minded.

Stepping off of her button, Mercedes reached for the string that was tied on the other side of the knob. It was a setup identical to the string she’d just abandoned, but Mercedes’ weight prompted the knob to turn clockwise this time, and halt the flow of water. Satisfied with her effort, Mercedes scooped up her makeshift bucket, brought it to her precious pea plant, and tipped it over so that the water poured onto the base of the stem.

A deep, earth-shaking rumble interrupted her humming without preamble, replacing it with the recognizable sound of the driveway’s gravel crunching underneath rubber tires. With a startled gasp, Mercedes looked up from her gardening.

Why was a car approaching? Was someone moving in? Oh, if someone was moving in—then _she_ needed to get inside!

She dropped her bucket. It bounced harmlessly away, settling close to the little divot in which it normally rested, but Mercedes didn’t worry about shoving it back into its place. She was too busy hurrying towards the crack in the brick wall that was her entry to her home in the walls. It was a large enough hole that she had no struggle in fitting through, and after pushing a large stone in front of the hole to block it, she skirted around insulation and foundation to one of the many ladders--crafted ingeniously from pairs of chopsticks-- that lay inside the walls. She scaled it with practiced ease, and soon, she made her way to the little knot in the wall paneling that hid one of her little doors to the inner house.

Nothing immediately caught her attention as she pushed the knot aside, moving it out of her way, and let herself into the main room of the house. The kitchen, dining room, and the living room were all one large room, for the most part, and the front door opened right into an adjoining mudroom. Mercedes’ little door, however, let her out onto a shelf that spanned two walls and the corner that adjoined them. She could see _everything_ from her position up there, which was exactly what she wanted when a new resident was arriving.

Mercedes dove behind an empty ceramic vase as the knob on the front door jostled, likely thanks to whoever was outside trying to fit the key into the notoriously sticky lock. Peering out from around the side of the vase, she watched her new housemate finish struggling with the lock and open the door.

The young woman propped the door up with her shoulder as she struggled to carry both her cellphone and a large suitcase. Shaggy blue hair hung in her face, partially obscuring tired eyes, and she moved with a sluggishness that concerned Mercedes.

“Yeah, Dad,” she said to the phone in her hand. “I made it safe.”

Another voice, a gruff man’s voice, came from the phone.

“And you didn’t have any trouble finding your way?”

“I said I made it…?”

“Ha! You make a good point, kiddo. It’s just a dad’s job to worry about his daughter, no matter how old she gets. You’re not hurtin’ at all?”

The young woman rolled her eyes as she dragged her suitcase in and propped it up against the kitchen table. This was clearly a conversation that they’d had a million times before.

“No, Dad,” she said as she set the phone down on the table.

“Got everything you need?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“What does the security look like? I can drive up and install a good security system if y—”

“Bye, Dad.”

“Byleth, I—”

Mercedes couldn’t tell if the sigh that escaped the woman— _Byleth_ —was one of fondness or frustration. But her motivation didn’t seem to matter that much, because Byleth reached over and tapped a glowing red button on the screen of her phone, ending the call with an unceremonious _beep._

Abandoning her suitcase by the table, Byleth groaned. She tilted her head back, and, combing shaggy blue hair back from her face, she left the kitchen in favor of the large, plush couch that separated it from the living room. Mercedes watched as her new roommate collapsed on the cushions, a decorative pillow beneath her head, her limbs askew.

But instead of getting up a few minutes later and starting the process of unpacking her belongings, as Mercedes had hoped she would, the human seemed perfectly content to stay just where she’d landed. Mercedes looked over her anxiously, waiting for an opportunity to retreat into her home in the walls, but the longer she waited, the more she realized that Byleth had no intention of moving.

As if to confirm her suspicions, a soft snore rose into the air. Mercedes hid a giggle behind her hand. She didn’t know how long Byleth had traveled to get here, but it must have been quite a tedious journey if the speed with which she’d fallen asleep was any indicator.

No longer concerned by the thought of having to sneak around a new, possibly anxious tenant, Mercedes let herself relax a little bit. Stepping around to the edge of the shelf on which she’d been hiding, she sat down with her legs hanging off the edge. She set her hands palms-down behind her, and leaned back with a happy little smile crossing her face.

It had been too long since the last tenants had moved out of her home. She fondly remembered the laughter of children ringing throughout the small house, playful quarrelling between lovers, and the silent camaraderie kept between companions who knew nothing needed to be said. But in each of those cherished memories ran an undercurrent of sadness. Mercedes loved her families, each and every person who had ever walked through the front door, and yet none of them had ever known of her.

But would that change anything? Of course not. Mercedes loved them for the sake of loving them, and doing little things for them, coexisting with them in the home she had chosen to spend her life in, was worth every little bit of pain that she would eventually be left with when their departure came to pass. And as she watched Byleth sleep, her head tilted to the side to rest against her shoulder, Mercedes could only smile.

She didn’t know how long Byleth would be there. But as long as she lived in Mercedes’ house, there would be someone there to care for her.

Byleth moved in her sleep, her snoring momentarily interrupted by her jerking around, and Mercedes tensed up. If Byleth awoke, then surely she could pass herself off as a tiny figurine on the shelf—she’d done it before—though drawing attention to herself so soon after Byleth’s arrival was far from ideal. But Byleth quickly stilled again, her hair fanned out on the pillowcase, and Mercedes could relax.

“Sleep well,” Mercedes whispered, as she rose to her feet and brushed off the shelf’s dust from her patchwork, piecemeal skirt. “I’ll be around.” Returning to the other end of the shelf, where a cuckoo clock was hung, she grabbed for the nearest cord and slid back down towards the ground. The next-closest entrance to her hidden network hid just behind a chest of drawers that hadn’t been moved in years, and Mercedes slipped effortlessly out of sight and into the walls.

She hadn’t taken anything to bring home with her, so Mercedes forewent using her pulley system in favor of climbing up the nails hammered into the far wall. Using them as handhold and foothold alike, Mercedes made short work of the familiar climb. The hole that she’d chosen was central enough to her network that she didn’t have much further to scurry after making it to the top of the ledge before she was at the tiny doorway to her home.

The door opened silently. Not for the first time did Mercedes wish that she could hang a tiny wind chime made from shards of glass and string by her door, so that she would hear its charming tinkling every time she came home, but she knew better than to be so easygoing about being noisy—particularly during the daytime, when humans were most likely to be going about their business. She could still hang little pieces up against the pinhole, plastic-covered windows in the wall that separated her home from the outside weather, though, and the colored glass tinted the light that streamed through and decorated the piecemeal quilt that covered her matchbox bed over in the corner.

Briefly, Mercedes considered the tempting way her bed called to her, but she dismissed the thought in favor of simply grabbing her preferred shawl, a ball of pilfered string, and the knitting needles she’d whittled down from splinters of wood. Bundling her chosen supplies into a basket that had once been a thimble, Mercedes wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and proceeded with her journey back to her tiny garden. Just because someone new had moved into her house, didn’t mean that her garden no longer needed tending, after all, and the chance to sit out in the afternoon sun was too good to pass up.

She _did_ use the pulley system, this time, setting her basket down in the macrame-strung teacup that made up the basket of her vehicle. She climbed in after it and began the process of carefully lowering herself back down towards the ground floor.

As she worked her way down the twine, Mercedes had to think that perhaps it would be possible to set things up for Byleth to come outside every once in a while. From the conversation she’d been holding over the phone with someone she’d called ‘Dad,’ Mercedes could only assume that Byleth had come—as many had—to take advantage of the fresh countryside air that blew against her sweet little house. And the only thing that was better for the body and soul than fresh air was the warmth of the spring sun.

A sudden _crash,_ a clamoring of what sounded like limbs and furniture, and a loud, exclaimed, _“Fuck!”_ came from the living room. With a jump and a startled little squeak, Mercedes cast her attention towards the innards of the home.

“Goddamn, _mother_ fucking—shitfaced son of a mother _fucking_ donkey—”

Mercedes tuned out the woman’s sudden burst of profanity as she let the twine go faster, let the teacup fall to the ground as quickly as she could without the risk of letting her conveyance shatter against the floor. Byleth had _just_ been asleep—what could have _possibly_ happened?

As soon as she could, Mercedes abandoned her supplies and, vaulting over the curved lip of the cup, bolted along the floorboards towards the hidden entryway. She pulled the cut-out knot of wood away from the hole and set it aside. Then, after emerging beneath the wooden contraption that housed the TV set, Mercedes peered out to examine the cause of Byleth’s outburst.

Where once the woman had been lying on the couch, spread out across the cushions as though it were a bed, Byleth now rested with her back on the wooden floor of the living room itself. Though, perhaps _rested_ wasn’t an appropriate word, considering the horribly pained way in which she writhed on the floor. She clutched at her head as she continued swearing like a sailor in the most comical of fashions, and Mercedes glanced around in search of the probable cause.

It didn’t take long to find; she’d merely overlooked it in her worry for Byleth. A coffee table, short and sharp-edged, usually sat in the space between the TV and the couch. Now, however, it had been flipped over to rest upside down with its legs high up in the air like a prone rodent. Judging from the proximity of its normal position and the space on the floor that Byleth now occupied, Mercedes could only guess that Byleth had somehow rolled off of the couch in her sleep, hit the edge of the coffee table, and _that_ had been the cause for the apparent frustration.

She couldn’t help herself. Covering her mouth, Mercedes giggled quietly. It seemed like her new tenant was far more accident-prone than she’d initially appeared to be. She’d definitely need to keep an eye out for Byleth, at least until she determined whether or not this was a frequent occurrence.

* * *

To her horror, it didn’t take long for Mercedes to learn just how frequent those occurrences actually were for Byleth. It was almost like she _literally_ couldn’t take her eyes off of Byleth, or the woman would end up in some sort of nonsensical quandary. And to be entirely frank, some of the things that Byleth had done over the course of their first week together should have been entirely impossible.

On her first night in Mercedes’ home, she’d tripped over absolutely nothing. But instead of catching herself, like Mercedes had expected her to, Byleth had stumbled forward and, falling against the door to her bedroom, smashed her elbow against the doorjamb. Her _elbow,_ of all things! Her hand, her fingers—Mercedes could have understood if Byleth had curled up in pain after injuring such a delicate appendage—but her _elbow_?

It would have been nice if Byleth had learned her lesson about running around without a care in the world. That wasn’t to be the case.

The next morning, Byleth had decided to make some coffee. Normally, that would have been nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, Mercedes delighted in seeing all of the different ways her tenants made coffee. She loved how no matter how different the person was, how differently they made their coffee, almost every adult that passed through her home took part in _some_ sort of morning ritual with their coffee. Why, when possible, Mercedes tried to join them in those brief, solitary moments when the day was new with her own thimbleful of tea, brewed from a sampling from the sachet of tea leaves that she’d borrowed from a long-gone tenant.

Byleth, though, had no such intricate routine. She’d rolled out of bed on her first morning at the house— _literally_ _rolled_ out of bed, landing on the floor with a _crunch_ of bones—and stumbled into the kitchen.

There hadn’t been any blissful moment of solitude, either. Byleth had turned on the electric kettle, and once the water had started boiling, she’d dumped a packet of instant coffee into a mug and started pouring the water in.

But then her phone had chimed, promising a message, and Byleth had pulled it from the pocket of her pajama pants and stared at it blankly. A faint smile had crossed her face as she tapped out a reply, but Mercedes had been too preoccupied by the continuous flow of the water from the electric kettle to pay much attention to Byleth’s expressions.

It had been a matter of seconds before the boiling water was too much for the mug to contain, and soon enough, the water had overflowed, spilled onto the counter, and off the counter entirely.

Mercedes had stifled her shriek with her hands as the hot water hit the ground. Byleth had let loose a stream of expletives as she lifted her feet from the ground. But as soon as the water had been mopped up, Byleth had proceeded to down her instant coffee without hesitation.

Such was the way Byleth’s days in Mercedes’ home tended to go. Accidents happened without a moment’s warning, and while Mercedes darted around the house whenever Byleth wasn’t paying attention, desperately trying to Byleth-proof the house wherever possible, nothing that she did seemed to make any difference.

Byleth always found a direct path to the most dangerous thing possible. The next morning, she’d rolled off of the wrong side of her bed and hit her head on the bedside table. Later, she’d stepped wrong off of the step that led to the garage and the laundry machine and sprained her ankle, and by the end of the second day, Mercedes had to conclude that no matter how ragged she ran herself, no matter how closely she watched Byleth, she would find _some_ way to get hurt.

Yet now, on the third day, Byleth had somehow managed to defy all of Mercedes’ expectations.

The human had only _just_ noticed that the wi-fi router had been turned off by the owners, for some reason. Now that she wanted to use her laptop, she needed the wi-fi _on_.

Of course, though, it was in the most inopportune place possible. It sat high on a shelf, surrounded by little knick-knacks and tiny houseplants that Mercedes cared for. It was too high for anyone to reach without some sort of ladder, which was why most tenants used the stepladder kept in the front closet when they wanted access to the router.

Oh, no. That was _far_ too simple of a solution for Byleth.

Mercedes could only watch in horror as Byleth stacked things on top of each other. She didn’t stop with a pillow on the armrest of a couch like other tenants had when they wanted to reach the wi-fi router, no. That wasn’t enough for her.

Phone books from the past decade had been stacked up on top of a dining room chair. But that wasn’t enough to reach the router, so Byleth had started building her ladder up even taller with her suitcase, which she had stuffed with clothes so it wouldn’t collapse down under her.

It wasn’t going to turn out well, Mercedes knew that for certain.

She wanted absolutely nothing more than to scamper up to the appropriate shelf and turn on the router for her, but because she hadn’t noticed that the router was off in the first place, it was too late for her to try and fix the problem. Byleth was already climbing up her rickety tower, and if Mercedes were to go ahead and fix it, she would probably notice something.

Mercedes clucked her tongue. No, that wasn’t probable at all. If she’d learned anything about Byleth, it was that she was entirely oblivious to most of what went on around her. Mercedes could probably walk around the house in plain view, evident for all to see, and she suspected that Byleth wouldn’t notice a single thing.

Byleth appeared to stumble around for the most part. Her hair was constantly unbrushed, Mercedes couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually used the washing machine in the garage, and her deep blue eyes were always dull and bleary despite the nearly absurd amounts of sleep that she got. Frankly, Mercedes wouldn’t be surprised if Byleth just took a glance at her, said ‘good morning,’ and continued about her day like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

How abnormal. How admirable. How… charming.

For all of her life, Mercedes had been an oddity. She’d been seen as a child, once, and while she hadn’t considered the incident to be a big deal at the time, her mother had understood the gravity of a Little being seen. They’d moved to a new house almost immediately afterwards, that was how serious it had been, and things had never quite been the same. She could still remember how the human’s eyes had widened at seeing her, how their initial reaction had been one of disbelief and shock—like they were looking at a mouse instead of a tiny human—but more importantly, she could still keenly remember the feeling of complete and total _other-_ ness that had begun eating her up from the inside out.

It had been a difficult realization to come to terms with at such a young age. She was different. She was an enigma. She’d have to always live on the edges of the world around her, sneaking about and trying to cover up her existence like she had never been there in the first place.

Maybe that was one of the reasons she felt so drawn to Byleth. Her oblivious nature made Mercedes feel like Byleth wouldn’t have any issues with accepting her. It would just be a blink, long and slow, as Byleth registered her, and then life would go on. Simple as that.

Just the very thought of being so easily acknowledged made Mercedes’ heart clench with longing; she sighed as she watched Byleth climb up onto her precariously balanced suitcase-tower. But just like Byleth’s current attempt to reach the router, she knew that the feelings moving her were little more than an ill-fated infatuation. Nothing would ever happen between Byleth and herself, and if the landowners ever found out that their house was technically _infested,_ Mercedes’ very _life_ could be at risk.

Even so, the occasional daydream wouldn’t have been so harmful that Mercedes couldn’t have enjoyed it. Thoughts of gentle hands holding her, shining eyes smiling at her—truly _at_ her, having a conversation with someone else, those thoughts and others similar to it were her constant companions. It was difficult to move past those desires, but watching Byleth and her accidental antics let her sometimes forget about the things that she’d never get to have.

Standing on top of her suitcase, Byleth reached up towards the shelf housing the router. As the hem of Byleth's shirt rose with her arms to expose a sliver of skin at the waistline, Mercedes's eyebrows followed. But somehow, as Mercedes was distracted by marveling at the unexpected exposure, Byleth managed to hit the button on the back of the router that would turn it back on.

“ _Fuck_ yes!” With an unexpected burst of triumphant emotion, Byleth punched the air. The suitcase and chair wobbled beneath her as she celebrated; Mercedes reached out with one hand like she could somehow save the human despite her size, her distance, but that didn’t stop Byleth from falling over and landing on the floor with a grunt of pain.

“Oh, no, Byleth!” Mercedes squeaked from her position on her shelf as she covered her mouth in horror. To her relief, though, Byleth didn’t seem to be hurt at all. Instead, Byleth bounced up almost immediately and, without a moment’s hesitation, she ran into her bedroom. Confused, Mercedes frowned. It wasn’t until Byleth came back out into the main room with her laptop tucked under her arm that she had an inkling of what was going on, why Byleth had been so desperate to get the router functional.

Byleth sat down at the kitchen table and opened the laptop with a muted excitement that Mercedes hadn’t seen before. Unable to see the screen, Mercedes ducked back into the walls. From within, she could still hear the way Byleth tapped away furiously at her keyboard. A few moments of traversal across the innards of the house later, she emerged on the kitchen counter from behind a loose tile. A cookie jar shielded her from Byleth’s view, but if she angled herself just right, she could see both Byleth and her screen.

Briefly, the screen was black. It was so dark, in fact, that Mercedes could see Byleth’s excited expression reflected in the glass. Mercedes cocked her head to the side as Byleth sat with a quiet, taut energy, watched the little rotating circle in the middle of the screen, and filled the space around her with anticipation.

With a little melodic chime, Byleth’s screen came fully alive. A woman’s face filled the screen, pale and slender, and Byleth lit up at the sight.

“Edelgard!” Byleth said, her typically monotonous voice alight with some feeling. Relief? Affection? Whatever it was, it made Mercedes’ heart twinge.

“Byleth,” the woman—Edelgard—said back with a thin smile as she tucked nearly-white hair behind her left ear, “I’m glad to see you’re doing well. You _are_ doing well, am I correct?”

Silver glinted on Edelgard’s hand. Mercedes found it difficult to breathe. Her airway narrowed; it was nearly impossible to swallow. She’d known that anything between Byleth and herself was impossible, she’d come to full terms with that, but having that impossibility laid out before her so plainly hurt with an intensity that Mercedes hadn’t experienced since childhood.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.” Byleth grinned. “I miss you, El.”

Edelgard blushed onscreen. “I miss you too, Byleth. I, well, I wish I hadn’t had to go on this business trip. I’d much rather be there with you. Have you been lonely?”

“I’m doing fine,” Byleth said with a dismissive shrug. “I talked to Dad when I got here. I’ve been texting. I would have called you earlier, but I forgot that there was wi-fi here.” She scratched the side of her face awkwardly. “I just got it turned back on, actually. That’s why I called now.”

“Well, then, it’s a good thing I was on break. I don’t think I would have forgiven myself if I’d missed your call.”

“I would have just called again.” Byleth spoke simply, and her wife giggled.

With an uncomfortable squirming feeling in her belly, Mercedes realized that she was intruding on something incredibly personal. It was intimate, practically, and she was beginning to gain a better understanding of why Byleth had been so neutral during her week there. Edelgard seemed to let those emotions loose for her, allowing whatever thoughts Byleth kept locked away to bubble up to the surface with just the sound of her voice.

Mercedes turned to take her leave, to give the women their privacy, but what Edelgard said next kept her rooted in place.

“You haven’t had any _events_ since you’ve been there, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.” Byleth seemed mildly perturbed by the question, but she answered Edelgard anyway.

“And you’ve been wearing your cardiac monitor, correct?”

Without a change in expression, Byleth reached down to the lower hem of her tank top and pulled it up to expose her chest. She was wearing a bra, Mercedes noted with relief, but she was surprised to see two wires connected to stickers on Byleth’s chest. A white one began just beneath her right collarbone, and a red one began on the left side of her lower ribcage.

The two wires coiled together at a point near Byleth’s waist, then went down into the right pocket of Byleth’s pajama pants. Mercedes saw, for the first time, that there was what appeared to be a black plastic clip hanging off the edge of the pocket, but Edelgard seemed to be satisfied with the proof Byleth had provided.

“Good,” she said, sighing heavily. She leaned forward in her chair, lacing her fingers together beneath her chin, and smiled at Byleth. “I’m glad. I was very worried that you’d been neglecting to take care of yourself, but it seems that my worries were baseless. And your medications?”

“Every day.”

“Wonderful.”

“They taste awful.”

“I know, dear.”

After letting her shirt fall back down, Byleth reached up to tighten her ponytail, her expression contorted. “Do you think you can come up later?” she asked. “It’s lonely being here all alone. I need cuddles.”

“I don’t—” Edelgard’s head dipped down slightly. “I’m not sure if I will be able to, Byleth. Believe me, I want nothing more than to come be with you while you’re taking a break, but if I tried to leave right now—”

Mercedes decided that, this time, she was definitely done listening. Careful to make as little noise as possible, she slipped back into the space between the walls and eased the tile back into place.

She slowly walked back to her home, her footsteps pulled down with the weight of what she’d just learned. It was her policy to avoid the bathrooms when someone was in there; her tenants deserved that basic privacy whenever possible. As a result, Mercedes hadn’t had a clue about the issue that had brought Byleth to her home in the first place.

She’d never noticed those electrodes on Byleth’s chest. She’d never noticed how they trailed down to Byleth’s pocket, where she assumed the monitor sat. Byleth had been in her home for an entire week. What kind of host had Mercedes been? She thought that she’d been taking care of Byleth this whole time.

Mercedes hesitated as she approached the door to her space. She didn’t want to go back to her little room, comforting as it was. Something about being all alone in that little hole just seemed like it wouldn’t be good for her. She elected to go for a walk outside, instead. So, with a fluff of her skirts and a resolute toss of her hair, she altered her course.

* * *

Just as Mercedes had hoped, a mid-morning walk was the perfect cure for the malaise that had descended upon her.

She tip-toed along the haphazard line of rocks and pebbles that were embedded in the ground. Memories of the time she’d spent with Annette the summer before bubbled to the front of her mind, and she smiled. They’d had so much fun together, digging holes in the rain-softened ground, getting dirt caked beneath their fingernails, and picking out perfectly smooth stones for their pathway. It hadn’t been a necessary chore, certainly, but it had been satisfying to look at their work after it was done, her arm slung around her best friend’s waist, and decide that it had been a job well done anyway.

And even now that Annette was gone and Mercedes was alone, it was a comfort to know that those memories would always be there for her. Not _every_ memory had to be doom and gloom.

Stepping down from the last rock and into the thick soil where her garden began, Mercedes made a beeline for her cabbage plant. It was nearly taller than her at this point in the growth cycle, and she brushed her hand against one of the thin, rumpled leaves. It made a satisfying rustling noise, but in pushing the leaf aside, she noticed something unsettling: a footprint.

For the briefest of moments, Mercedes thought it could have been one of her own. It was in the middle of her own garden, after all, and she did have a habit of walking around barefoot when the dirt was cool in the morning. But that hope, faint as it was, was quickly replaced by a growing concern as soon as she took a second glance. Not only was the footprint both the wrong size and shape to match her own foot, but it had definitely rained since the last time she’d come to visit her little cabbage baby. Any of her own footprints would have been washed away by now.

This was recent. _Very_ recent.

And if she looked a little further, it wasn’t the only footprint to be seen. There was a whole trail of footprints, one which led all the way to the other side of her garden.

Mercedes held her breath as she walked alongside the footprints, and as she got closer and closer to the patch of mustard greens that the footprints disappeared into, she began to see a slight flutter to the leaves despite the windless day. It sank in on her that there was someone there.

_There was someone there._

Her hand shaking, Mercedes pushed aside the first plant. The second. And then, she saw her:

Another Borrower.

Short, choppy, blonde hair framed the woman’s face as she lay curled up on the ground, her back pressed up against a mustard plant. She clutched a wooden barbeque skewer to her chest, and with a start, Mercedes realized that the blade of a crafting knife had somehow been tied to the tip to create an effectively miniaturized spear. Dirt was smeared all over her face; Mercedes leaned in closer and saw that blood was mixed in, as well.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Mercedes murmured as she knelt down close to the other woman. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand to perhaps brush a few strands of hair off of the woman’s tanned face.

A hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. Gasping in surprise, Mercedes met hard, sharp, dazzlingly emerald eyes—the eyes of the Borrower who had taken hold of her with a grip so fierce that Mercedes’ legs trembled beneath her skirt.

“You weren’t asleep,” Mercedes breathed. As the woman tightened her grasp on her spear, she shook her head.

“No.” Her voice was gruff, ragged, like she hadn’t had anything to drink in quite some time. “Just… resting.”

“What’s your name?” Mercedes asked. “I’m Mercedes. How long have you been here?”

“I’m Ingrid.” Ingrid’s chest rose and fell heavily, like despite her quick reaction to Mercedes’ impending touch, she’d still somehow been caught off-guard. “It’s been… a few days, I think. I didn’t mean to steal your food, Ms. Mercedes, but I got lost after the possum—”

“There was a _possum_?” Mercedes’ heart bottomed out. Possums were large, terrifyingly fierce creatures—especially in the face of a Borrower—and to think that Ingrid had possibly faced one and _survived,_ well, it was nearly impossible! “Ingrid, are you hurt anywhere?”

“Uh… I don’t think so?” Ingrid finally let go of Mercedes’ arm. With her other hand still on her spear, she patted her torso over. Mercedes watched, worried, as Ingrid winced every so often, and when her fingertips came away bloody, Ingrid looked back up to Mercedes with wide eyes. “Well, maybe I am.”

Worry for the other Borrower's health shocked Mercedes into action. While it probably wasn't the wisest idea to let someone so unknown into her home, she _had_ the means to care for Ingrid, and if she had become so stingy as to forget how to help someone else since Annette left, then she was becoming someone she didn't have any desire to be.

“Come with me, Ingrid,” she said with an outstretched hand. “I live just inside; you can stay with me for a while as you heal. I can get some medication, some bandages if you need them—”

“Are you sure?” Ingrid furrowed her brow, worry clouding her expression. “I mean, I’m a stranger. I’ve been living in your garden. I don’t know why you’d be so nice to me.”

“You’re not a stranger; you’re Ingrid.” Mercedes smiled, and hesitantly, Ingrid smiled back. “And Ingrid, I’ve decided, is a friend. I promise, it’s perfectly alright for you to come inside.”

Ingrid mumbled her thanks as she reached out and placed her calloused, work-worn hand in Mercedes’. With a grunt of exertion, Mercedes pulled Ingrid up and to her feet. She allowed Ingrid to use her arm and shoulder as support, and together, they stumbled back towards the hole in the wall that would lead them back to Mercedes’ home. All along the way, Mercedes whispered sweet nothings, tiny encouragements to the injured Borrower as they stumbled back home.

“Just a few more steps.”

“We’re almost there, Ingrid.”

“You’re doing so good.”

With her face so close to Ingrid’s, Mercedes could hear as Ingrid’s breathing became more and more labored. Mentally, she berated herself. What if she’d noticed those footsteps before today? Maybe then, poor Ingrid wouldn’t be in as dire of a state.

As soon as they got inside, Mercedes eased Ingrid down onto her bed and set about finding everything she needed. She pulled out all of the patchwork blankets and handkerchiefs that she typically reserved for the colder seasons, setting them down beside Ingrid, and as soon as she determined that the blood on Ingrid’s belly was from nothing more than a scratch, she held out a set of her own pajamas.

“Go ahead and get changed into these,” she instructed, kindly. Ingrid, however, balked at the idea.

“Those are _your_ clothes, though,” she protested, like denying Mercedes’ request would somehow preserve her dignity. To this, Mercedes simply shook her head.

“Yours are dirty,” she said, “not to mention cut up from that skirmish you had with the possum.”

Ingrid mulled it over for a moment, then took the clothes from Mercedes. In turn, Mercedes turned around to assure Ingrid of her privacy.

“Where do you want me to put my clothes?” Ingrid asked a few moments later. Mercedes glanced over her shoulder to see that Ingrid sat awkwardly on the edge of her bed, her back ramrod-straight, her fingers fiddling awkwardly with the rough hem at the end of the pajama sleeves. Her own clothes lay in a pile at her side.

“I’ll take them!” Mercedes cheerfully told her as she bundled the discarded clothes into her arms. “Maybe I can fix them.”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Of course.” She beamed at Ingrid. “I’ll get started on these, then. How about you try and get some sleep? You must be exhausted.”

Ingrid hummed in agreement, and, pulling her legs up onto Mercedes’ bed, she wrapped herself up in the blankets bundled on top of them, then rolled over to face the wall.

A warm satisfaction filled Mercedes’ chest as she set Ingrid’s clothes down on her dinner table. Then, her sewing kit in hand, she set about her work.

* * *

Perhaps it was for the best that Ingrid slept for the rest of the day, because as soon as Byleth ended the call with her wife and closed her laptop, it was like Byleth’s mind went somewhere else entirely. Mercedes was relatively sure that she understood the feeling—the first few days after Annette had begun the journey to rejoin her mother, Mercedes had experienced a slowness, an uncomfortable yet familiar otherworldliness that separated her from her surroundings. Perhaps it was grief. Worry, even. It had been so difficult to move through the thick, hazy veneer of her loneliness, and when she’d seen her own reflection, her gaze had been worrisomely dark.

Byleth had seemed to experience that exact feeling for a few hours after getting off the call with Edelgard. She’d floated around the house in a daze, and when she’d pulled a block of wood and a hunting knife out of her suitcase, Mercedes had panicked. Yet to her surprise, Byleth had seemed perfectly comfortable with a blade in her hand, at home in a way that Mercedes hadn’t witnessed up until that point. Sitting on the edge of the front porch with her feet firmly planted on the ground before her, she’d spent hours whittling away at the wood until, at last, she held a rough figurine of a bird in the palm of her hand.

Mercedes hadn’t had the chance to inspect her tenant’s process; Byleth had accidentally locked the front door behind her when going out to the front porch and Mercedes had subsequently gone through the whole song and dance of unlocking it before Byleth decided it was time to go back inside.

Yet for the first time in a long time, she’d had something else than Byleth’s predisposition for casual chaos on her mind. _How is Ingrid?_ she constantly wondered. _What brought her so far out from her own home? Where_ is _her own home? Are there other Borrowers out there that I didn’t know about?_ Such thoughts—and others—nearly brought Mercedes to an incident of her own, as, while she’d been preoccupied with her guest’s possible origins, she had neglected to ensure that the string she intended to slide down was firmly secured to the head of the nail that stuck out of the wall above the door.

But in the end, the door was unlocked, Byleth came back inside, and no-one was the wiser. And when Ingrid woke up the next morning, Mercedes was ready for her with a stack of pancakes. Ingrid didn’t seem too interested in where they’d come from, only where they were going, so Mercedes had filled her time with the simple, comforting act of doing something for someone else—and made more pancakes, because the first stack that she’d set down in front of Ingrid quickly disappeared.

When Ingrid was finally satiated and the two of them started in on the dishes together, Mercedes finally learned a little bit more about who she was and where she’d come from. There was a small community of Borrowers that lived in a nearby forest, it seemed, in a hollowed-out tree growing near a patch of thistles—though they didn’t call themselves _Borrowers._ They called themselves _Littles,_ in comparison to the _Bigs_ that occasionally traipsed through their home. They had no need to borrow food and supplies, as Mercedes did, from the humans that lived in their homes, but foraged for food much like squirrels did—a comparison that made Ingrid wrinkle her nose when Mercedes suggested it—and traded with the other communities of magical creatures that lived in the woods alongside them.

It seemed like a fantastic life, Mercedes had to admit, though she wasn’t sure if she had the thick skin necessary to brave the winters and wilds that seemed to be a constant threat. And when she said as much to Ingrid, Ingrid had shrugged. It was a fact of life for her, just like the constant ins-and-outs of humans was for Mercedes. Most of the time, she knew how to deal with such threats, and it hadn’t been until she’d stumbled upon a mother possum and her den of little ones that she’d ever encountered something she couldn’t handle.

“How did you get all the way out here, then?” Mercedes asked as she took a plate from Ingrid’s sudsy hands, dried it off, and set it down on the appropriate shelf. “If the possum was in the forest when you found her, I don’t see how you made it here. That sort of distance should have taken you _days_.”

Ingrid’s shoulders rose in a brief shrug. “It doesn’t sound real,” she said, “but there was a rabbit. It got scared out of hiding by the possum, and I managed to grab onto it as it ran by. That just scared it even more, and it didn’t stop running until I fell off near your garden.”

Mercedes nodded. “I see. Well, however you ended up here, I’m sure we can get you on your way home as soon as you’re feeling better.” She paused. She didn’t want to _rush_ Ingrid out of her home, nor did she want to pressure Ingrid into staying with her just because Mercedes herself was lonely. So she corrected herself with, “Whenever you feel ready, that is.”

“Thank you, Mercedes.”

At the sound of her name, Mercedes looked over to meet Ingrid’s eyes. To her surprise and delight, she was met with a smile filled with the warmth of the sun itself. She hadn’t known Ingrid had such a kind expression in her. Then again, she had only seen Ingrid long enough to know what she looked like when exhausted, in pain, or as she lay sleeping in recovery. Her pulse quickened; her heart fluttered. Ingrid was beautiful when she smiled, and Mercedes couldn’t help but smile back.

She liked the way her name sounded from Ingrid’s lips, and she couldn’t wait to hear it again.

* * *

Ingrid acclimated to life in Mercedes’ house incredibly quickly. Perhaps it was a result of living outdoors for her entire life and constantly having to readjust to whatever changes came her way, but her ingenuity surprised Mercedes endlessly.

While Mercedes had spent years following her routine of ladders and pulleys, Ingrid found shortcuts and came up with clever ideas to make Mercedes’ life easier. Mercedes found herself so enraptured by Ingrid’s presence, however, that she began to pay less and less attention to the human that also lived within her walls. There were times that Mercedes sat on her ledges and displayed to Ingrid some of Byleth’s more particular idiosyncrasies, but for the most part, her time was simply spent with Ingrid.

And in those moments where Mercedes stopped to think about the way her life had changed in the few days, she found that she hadn’t been this happy since Annette had left for her mother’s home. There wasn’t anything she regretted about the way she decided to spend her time—at least, not until Ingrid came up to her with wide, worried eyes and a frantic expression.

“Mercedes,” she said, “I think something’s wrong with the Big.” Her announcement came out in short, harried bursts, and she sounded panicked enough that Mercedes immediately set aside her knitting.

“What is it?” she asked as she stabbed her knitting needles and project both down into the pincushion she was sitting on. Her chest tightened with concern. Ingrid hadn’t shown herself to be the sort to panic—at least not yet—and whenever she’d come across any sort of problem up to that point, she’d managed to solve it herself.

This time, though, it was about Byleth—who, as Mercedes remembered, had some sort of medical condition that was serious enough for her wife to be worried about her being alone.

“Ingrid, tell me.” She stood up hastily and, taking both of Ingrid’s hands in her own, squeezed them tightly. “What happened?”

“The Big—”

“Byleth,” Mercedes corrected.

“ _Byleth_ fell. She’s on the ground, and she hasn’t gotten up yet.”

Mercedes’ mind raced. Was that a symptom of her medical condition? Shouldn’t the monitor that she wore have alerted her if something was about to happen? Was that something that her monitor was supposed to do? She should have paid more attention when Byleth and Edelgard had been discussing her condition.

“We should go check on her,” Mercedes decided aloud, but Ingrid had already started dragging her along the path to Byleth’s room. They hurried through the walls, Ingrid taking Mercedes down several pathways that Mercedes herself hadn’t carved out. Mercedes was briefly impressed by Ingrid’s ingenuity, but once they turned a corner and came out onto a shelf halfway up the wall, there wasn’t any space left in her head for unnecessary thoughts such as those.

Because just as Ingrid had said, Byleth laid on the floor, motionless but for the subtle rise and fall of her chest. Her face was pale, and Mercedes immediately assumed the worst.

Was she on the brink of death? There was no sound coming from the monitor in her pajama pockets, which confused Mercedes beyond end. Was she merely sleeping? That was always a possibility; Byleth could sleep almost anywhere. Every time Mercedes had seen her, though, she’d at least been somewhere _vaguely_ comfortable. Never the floor _._

Mercedes pressed her palm against her heart in a futile attempt to quell her fears. Her mind blank, she looked around for the nearest way down from the shelf, then jolted with shock as Ingrid set a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look; Ingrid wordlessly pointed at the old, notched trim on the wall that she could use to scale down to the ground. Mercedes nodded and set about making her way to the floor.

The rule was to never let a human see her. It always had been, and it always would be. Being seen would immediately put her life in danger. But all thoughts of _rules_ and _safety_ flew out of her mind as her bare feet hit the ground and she darted towards Byleth’s prone form.

As she walked up to her, it dawned upon Mercedes just how _little_ she was in comparison to a real human. How _tiny._ How _miniscule._ It was one thing to constantly be looking down on Byleth and her other humans as they went about their lives, to live with the factual knowledge that she was so much smaller than Byleth. Now that the stark difference between them had been brought to the forefront of Mercedes’ attention, though, it had become impossible to ignore.

Mercedes marveled up at Byleth. The way her dark blue hair curled as it lay splayed out on the hard floor made it look so deep that if Mercedes hadn’t known better, she might have thought she was looking up at the clearest of night skies.

Shaking her head to clear her mind and remind herself of why she was so close in the first place, Mercedes looked for the wires that sprouted from beneath Byleth’s shirt. Once she saw them, she followed the lines to the pocket where the monitor sat. To her relief, it was in the closest pocket, and Mercedes dragged the hard plastic device out into plain sight. It was only a little bit smaller than she was, but it wasn’t too heavy for her to manipulate.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” Ingrid asked, peering over her shoulder as Mercedes propped up the monitor on Byleth’s leg to inspect it closely.

“I…” Squinting at the dark screen, Mercedes shifted her head from side to side as she inspected for some sign of life. Nothing. She pushed the button that took up the rightmost third of the monitor. Nothing. She pushed it again, several times more—but still, nothing. With a quiet, frustrated groan, she shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Most things like this, they—they light up, I suppose, and there’s usually something on the display. At least, the ones that I’ve seen before.”

It was frustrating, knowing that something was wrong with Byleth but not having the wherewithal to do anything about it. There was solace to be found in the knowledge that at least Byleth was breathing easily, at least.

“So…” Ingrid stood up and crossed her arms over her chest. “What should we do with her?”

“We can’t just _leave_ her,” Mercedes said, glancing around. “She’s got something wrong with her heart; she probably needs to see a doctor!”

“A human doctor.”

“Well, yes. That’s what I meant. But how—” Mercedes’ gaze settled on Byleth’s mobile phone, which had fallen out of Byleth’s hand when she’d collapsed to the ground. Of course! She didn’t know any of the numbers for Byleth’s doctors, but Byleth’s wife certainly would. The thought of reaching out to Edelgard and actually holding a conversation with her brought a chill to Mercedes’ bones, but she struggled to come up with any other solutions to the problem at hand.

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I think we should call her wife,” she said to Ingrid, who balked immediately.

“What do you mean, _call her_?” she asked with a concerned expression. “They’re human!”

But Mercedes ignored her worries in favor of hurrying for the phone at Byleth’s side, and she turned it face-up as soon as she reached the slim device. In complete opposition to the monitor, the screen lit up as soon as it faced her. Mercedes’ heart twinged as she saw that the background was a picture of Byleth and her wife, but she had to admit that it was a cute photograph.

Oh, but she didn’t have time for that. Mercedes pushed the button at the bottom of the screen, and to her surprise, the phone unlocked with a friendly little _whoosh._ That was probably for the best, though—it would have taken a long time to open it otherwise, and that was assuming that Byleth had it set up to open with her fingerprints like other tenants had in the first place.

“We can’t just let her die,” Mercedes said firmly as she dragged her hand across the phone screen, searching for the contacts folder on Byleth’s phone. “I saw them talking together the day I found you; her wife seems like she has a good head on her shoulders.”

Long ago, a tenant had explained to their parent how to work their phone, and she couldn’t be more grateful that she’d decided to listen in for curiosity’s sake. To her relief, Edelgard’s number was simply labeled ‘Edelgard,’ so she pressed her hand against the tiny icon of a phone beside it. The screen went black, with the exception of a vibrating icon of Edelgard’s face, and the phone started to emit a loud ringing noise. Mercedes cringed at the volume; Ingrid covered her ears and ducked out of view.

A few rings later, Edelgard picked up.

“Yes? Is everything alright, Byleth?”

Her voice was firm, and while her tone was soft in anticipation of speaking to her wife, it was clear that she wasn’t the sort to take any funny business. So, Mercedes got straight to the point.

“Hello, you don’t know me,” she began, speaking quickly, “but I think something is wrong with Byleth.”

“Hello? _Hello?_ Byleth, are you there?” Edelgard began to sound exasperated. “Did you accidentally butt-dial me again?”

It dawned on Mercedes that, being as small as she was, she might have a voice to match her stature. She took a deep breath, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted as loudly as she could. “Byleth fainted!”

“She—she _what_?” Edelgard seemed to understand her then, if the panic that filled her voice was anything to go by. “Hold on, let me just—”

Mercedes lost her grip on the phone, startled, as the black screen was replaced by a zoomed-in image of the pale woman’s face that Mercedes had first seen on Byleth’s computer. But instead of being filled with a gentle, warm happiness like they had been with Byleth, Edelgard’s lilac eyes were as cold as ice and filled with sharp concern.

“Who are you? What’s wrong with Byleth?” she asked, her commanding voice booming out from the speakers. Wincing, Mercedes leaned over to look at the screen. In the corner of the screen, she saw her own face reflected back at her, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that just as she could see Edelgard, Edelgard could see her in turn.

Generations of terror ran through her body, and for the briefest of moments, Mercedes wanted nothing more than to hang up on Edelgard and leave Byleth to fend for herself. This was _wrong_. Everything about this was _wrong._ She wasn’t supposed to let herself be seen by—much less initiate conversation with—a human.

But Byleth _needed_ her.

Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Mercedes tucked thick hair behind her ear and smiled uneasily into the camera.

“My name is Mercedes,” she said. “I—your wife is staying in my house, and I’m afraid that—well, she’s fainted.”

“She’s fainted?” Edelgard’s eyes widened, and she propped her forehead up on her palm. “Shit,” she muttered. “I knew something like this was going to happen. It’s _Byleth._ Of _course_ something like this would happen. I _knew_ I should have gone with her!”

“Ma’am?” Mercedes prodded, and Edelgard snapped her head back up to attention. “What do I need to do?”

Edelgard closed her eyes, and Mercedes got the feeling that she was taking a deep breath of her own. “Is she breathing?” she asked, her voice heavy with worry.

Mercedes nodded.

“She has—there’s a heart monitor on her chest. Well, the wires are on her chest, the monitor should be in her pocket. She was supposed to keep it on all of the time.” Edelgard pinched the bridge of her nose, her thin brows drawn together. “Is it recording?”

Mercedes glanced back towards the monitor, confirming that its display was still black. “No, ma’am. It seems that it’s turned off.”

Edelgard hissed something else beneath her breath. “Of course,” Mercedes made out. “She probably forgot to change the batteries.”

Mercedes tried to be patient with her, as Edelgard was clearly having a rough moment, but Ingrid wasn’t having any of it.

“Hey!” Mercedes moved to the side as Ingrid shoved her way into the picture. “She’s unconscious. What do we do?”

Edelgard stood up, moving mostly out of the picture as she did so. “Make sure she can breathe,” she told Mercedes, then as she put a coat on over her shoulders, she addressed someone off-screen. “Hubert, call emergency services and direct them to Byleth.”

A grunt of approval, also off-screen, and Edelgard looked back at Mercedes. “She has bradycardia,” she informed her. “That means that sometimes, her pulse drops like this.” She sighed and slung a purse across her chest. “I’m about a half-hour away. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but emergency services should be there quickly. Please make sure everything is ready for them. Call me again if her status changes.”

Mercedes and Ingrid both nodded, and Edelgard ended the call. Confused, Ingrid turned to Mercedes.

“She didn’t seem to be very worried about us being so small,” she wondered aloud.

“You’re right.” Mercedes set her hands on her hips and watched Byleth breathe steadily. “Once we figured out that we needed to speak louder, it went… surprisingly well.”

“So… what now?”

Mercedes hummed thoughtfully as she tried to come up with a proper course of action. It wasn’t until the distant sound of an ambulance siren jarred her that she realized what they needed to do. “You keep an eye on Byleth,” she told Ingrid, “just to make sure she’s alright. I’m going to go unlock the door so the medics can get in without breaking it down.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if something goes wrong,” Ingrid cautioned. Mercedes could only shrug.

“I think we’ll have to cross that bridge if we get to it.”

Mercedes sighed. There were so many unknowns, now that Byleth was unconscious on the floor and her wife was on the way, and it was nearly paralyzing. Without another word, she swept forward and wrapped her arms around Ingrid, hugging her tightly. Ingrid stiffened up at her touch, unexpected as it was, and Mercedes worried that she’d overstepped her overly familiar bounds, but after a moment, Ingrid softened and reciprocated the embrace.

“Thank you for being here with me,” Mercedes said in her ear, her voice quiet enough that Byleth’s gentle breathing threatened to drown it out. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You would have done it.” Ingrid squeezed her close, and Mercedes could hear a smile in her voice. “I know it.”

“Maybe so.” Mercedes allowed herself a moment in which she could be bolstered by Ingrid’s strength, letting part of the burden that she’d carried for so long spread equally across their shoulders. “But it was better to not be alone.”

* * *

As soon as the ambulance arrived, Mercedes lost track of time. Byleth was whisked away on a stretcher as Mercedes and Ingrid watched from afar, after which Mercedes busied herself with the simple, menial task of starting on a new pair of socks. It was all she could do, really.

Byleth didn’t come back that night. Or the night after that.

Mercedes couldn’t shake the human from her mind. Was she alright? Had they taken too long to reach out to Edelgard? She didn’t know exactly what fainting would do to a human, but given that Byleth already had a medical condition, she didn’t think it could be anything good.

Ingrid, thankfully, seemed to pick up on Mercedes’ worry. To be fair, it would have been hard to ignore. Mercedes made more tiny mistakes like dropping stitches, pulling plants instead of weeds, and burning breakfasts. Ingrid didn’t intrude on Mercedes’ efforts to work normally, though, and just worked alongside her. And if Mercedes had appreciated Ingrid’s presence before, now she couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten along without her.

On the morning of the third day, Byleth returned. More accurately, Byleth stumbled in on the arm of her wife, Edelgard, who was far shorter than Mercedes had anticipated for someone so strong of spirit. Mercedes watched from her shelf in the living room as Edelgard sat Byleth down on the couch, then she followed Edelgard around as she packed up all of Byleth’s belongings.

“Is there anything I’m forgetting, Byleth?” Edelgard called from the bedroom.

“I don’t think so. Almost everything is still in my suitcase.”

Edelgard shook her head with exasperation, though there was a fondness in her expression that pained Mercedes’ heart. “You were supposed to be here for a few weeks, yet you didn’t bother to unpack?”

“I didn’t see the point,” Byleth replied. “I wasn’t going to be here long; why would I get too comfortable?”

“Well, because getting comfortable _was_ the point?” Edelgard chuckled, then paused. “Are you sure that you’re ready to come back home? I’d certainly prefer you to be close to your cardiologist, yes, but if you think it would be better for you to—”

“I want to go home.” Coming out of the living room, Byleth walked into the bedroom and embraced Edelgard from behind. “I’d rather be on vacation with you than be here by myself.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to see if I can take some time off,” Edelgard said as she set her hands on top of Byleth’s.

“Don’t you run the company?” Byleth frowned. “You can do what you want.”

Edelgard laughed again and shook her head. Byleth snuck her hand out from beneath Edelgard’s and, taking hold of the suitcase that Edelgard had only just zipped up, pulled out of the embrace.

“I’m ready to go when you are,” Byleth announced as she headed for the front door, which had been propped open to make packing Byleth’s car easier.

“Then let’s go.” Edelgard followed Byleth, taking the handle of Byleth’s suitcase in hand as soon as she got close enough. Mercedes watched, pain welling up in her heart, as they closed and locked the door behind them. Then, gathering her skirts up in her hands, she ran back into the walls, hurried down her ladders, and, pushing a weatherproofed door open, let herself out onto the outside portion of the kitchen windowsill.

Ingrid was already there, to her surprise, and she turned to smile at Mercedes as she came to stand beside her.

“I think it’s time for me to leave, too,” Ingrid said as she turned back to watch Edelgard and Byleth load Byleth’s belongings into their car. Mercedes’ stomach dropped at the announcement, and she felt her smile falter.

“What do you mean?” Mercedes asked, trying to strengthen her smile. “Didn’t you only just arrive? Are you sure you’ve healed?”

“Enough to go home.”

Mercedes’ vision clouded; she furrowed her brow. There was so much change happening, all at once, and it was nearly too much to bear. The sound of a car engine starting caught her attention, and she looked up.

She didn’t want Byleth to leave. She didn’t want _Ingrid_ to leave. She’d never wanted Annette to leave, either—but no matter what Mercedes wanted, that’s what they always did. She bit down on her lower lip as tears began to form, but then she started with surprise as Ingrid slipped her hand into hers.

“Mercedes.” Ingrid squeezed Mercedes’ hand. Mercedes looked at her; as welcome as she’d appreciated having the opportunity to have Ingrid stand by her side as Edelgard and Byleth drove away, the gesture was unexpected.

“What is it?” Mercedes asked, but instead of answering, Ingrid stared off into the horizon, her gaze distant, her gaze unreadable. Worry sparking in her chest, Mercedes prompted her again. “Ingrid?”

“You should come with me.”

Mercedes couldn’t believe what she was hearing. No, she definitely had to have misheard. “Come again?” she asked innocently, even as her pulse pounded in her ears.

“You should come with me,” Ingrid repeated, turning to face Mercedes. “Live with me, and my friends, and the rest of the Littles.” The sun caught her from behind; thin wisps of her blond hair flew out about her face and framed the depth of her green gaze with such an intensity that Mercedes locked her knees to keep herself from shaking. “You don’t have to stay here, taking care of people who are never going to appreciate the things you do for them.”

She turned to fully face Mercedes, and catching both of the Borrower’s hands in her own, turned them both palm-up. Mercedes’ heart withered as she noticed the brusque—yet respectful—way that Ingrid regarded the scrapes and scars, the burns and blisters, the consequences of the care she’d extended to so many people for so long.

Mercedes had never felt any _shame_ in the state of her hands, but having someone point out the effect of her compulsion to take care of her humans was nearly too much to bear. She felt her face heat up as Ingrid brushed the pads of her thumbs against the callouses built up on Mercedes’ palms.

“Make your own life.” Mercedes tried to shake her head, to turn away and run away from the words that cut her so deeply to the core, but the weight of Ingrid’s words held her firmly in place. “You can be alone if you want, Mercedes, but you don’t _have_ to be.”

Deep within her heart, Mercedes knew that Ingrid was right. Ever since Annette had left, she’d tried to fill the empty space with anything and everything she could find. She’d tried to deny it, too—saying she’d always had a caring personality, she’d _always_ been this way, Annette’s departure hadn’t affected her in any way whatsoever—but when she thought about it, when was the last time she’d truly lived for herself? Even when there weren’t any people living in her house, she simply stayed there in stasis, waiting in limbo until the next person walked in through the front door and gave her life purpose again.

“Who would take care of my garden?” Mercedes asked, her voice a rough whisper as she desperately tried to create a veritable _reason_ for her to stay in the safe, familiar prison she’d created for herself. “I have to water them. And what if—what if Annette comes back? It’s such a long trip from here to her home; I can’t make her make that journey twice for nothing.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ingrid squeezed her hands again. “Annette isn’t here anymore. And if she does come back, we can leave a note behind for her, or something like that.”

“But I’ve never lived in the outdoors, Ingrid.”

“We’ll show you how. None of us were born knowing how to survive on our own.”

“What if I don’t like it?”

“Then at least you’ll have tried.”

“And what if I told you that I’m scared?” Mercedes whispered.

Ingrid pulled her in close, and Mercedes found herself enveloped within a care that hadn’t been extended to her in a long time. Mercedes’ lower lip wobbled as she held back her emotions.

“Then I’ll stay with you the whole time,” Ingrid told her. “You don’t have to do _any_ of this alone, Mercedes, and you won’t.”

With a deep, heart-heavy sigh, Mercedes let her head fall forward, let her head rest on Ingrid’s shoulder. Every argument for staying had a counterargument for leaving, and if she were to be honest with herself, Ingrid had a point. It wasn’t wise for her to isolate herself following Annette’s departure. Nor was it healthy for her to base her entire concept of self-worth on the care she could extend to others.

But as much as she knew she needed to change, the thought of actually doing so felt like standing on the edge of a precipice.

It would be a leap of faith. With any luck, though, there would be someone waiting to catch her with arms outstretched.

* * *

The early morning sun cast long shadows over the yard. A gentle breeze rustled through the plants of Mercedes’ garden, and as Mercedes tucked a stray length of hair over her ear, she sighed.

“Are you ready to go?” Ingrid asked, her hand outstretched.

“As I’ll ever be.” Mercedes smiled at her gratefully, and stepping out between the blades of grass, took Ingrid’s hand. “You look very nice today,” she told Ingrid, who blushed in return.

“That’s your fault,” she muttered, even as she self-consciously smoothed out the sturdy green fabric that made up her pants. The ratty, tattered clothes that she’d arrived at Mercedes’ home in had been discarded entirely, as Mercedes had taken advantage of her last few days in her longtime home to use up her stash of fabric and make new clothes for the both of them. She didn’t know when she’d have the opportunity to make new clothes again, now that she was embarking on such a strange new journey.

She didn’t know when she’d have many of the things she’d gotten used to having, really. She’d miss her tea, her pantry, her blankets, her _knitting_ —all the little things that she’d considered normal and commonplace for most of her life were going to be hard to come by. Mercedes frowned at the thought, and she readjusted her hold on the basket that contained her most precious belongings.

Ingrid, though, seemed to have noticed her hesitation, and she squeezed Mercedes’ hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she reassured her. “Remember, you can always come back.”

“Right.” Mercedes chuckled uncomfortably, then hesitated. “Can I have a moment, actually? Before we go, I’d like to…well, I’d like to say good-bye.”

“Certainly.” Ingrid squeezed her hand once again before releasing it. Mercedes turned around, craning her neck to look up at the worn, brick exterior of the house she’d lived in for so long.

She would miss it. She’d made so many memories here; she’d seen so many people make their own memories here, and helped them do it. She knew the layout by heart, both the rooms of the house itself and the pathways she and Annette had taken within the walls. And while there was always the possibility that she’d return, Mercedes knew, deep down in her heart, that it was time for her to move on.

“Thank you,” she said with a gentle incline of her head. Consciously, she knew the house couldn’t hear her, but in her mind, her heart, it was an entity in its own right. “It hasn’t always been happy, but it’s always been worth it.”

Her voice trembled with emotion; her heart clenched with sorrow. Setting her basket down on the ground, she stepped forward to set her palm against the rough, porous brick. She leaned her head forward and let her forehead rest against the wall. “Thank you for everything. Goodbye.”

Mercedes wasn’t fully ready for the departure, but after bringing her emotions out into the open, she knew that she had finally been set onto the path of healing. With a deep, wavering breath, she picked up her basket, turned around, and reached out to take Ingrid’s hand once again.

“I’m ready now,” she said with a smile, and this time, she knew it to be true. With a relieved smile of her own, Ingrid shouldered her own backpack full of luggage. Together, they turned to face the towering trees that marked their destination. The road would be wrought with uncertainties and firsts, but Mercedes was ready to face it. Together, they would make it.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Femslash February! Oh, this was lovely to write. It changed a lot while in progress, and I'm honestly quite happy with the way it turned out. (I listened to the Arietty OST so much, guys, it's not even funny.) But it wouldn't have ever been as nice without the help of my lovely beta, [Lily](https://twitter.com/spiderlilywrite) and my gf's encouragement. 
> 
> In addition, I had the amazing opportunity to write with [Evie](https://twitter.com/Yevievt) as my artist as part of the 3H AU Big Bang! There's so many great artists and writers participating, so definitely check out the collection if you have the opportunity. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the story. ♥


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